In the Bendigo region, 94.22 per cent of children under five years of age are fully vaccinated, just shy of the state government’s target of 95 per cent.

About 93 per cent of the state’s children are fully vaccinated.

Bendigo Family Practice GP Dr Arvind Sharma said the goal of vaccination was to achieve ‘herd immunity’, when enough people became immunised against an illness that there was little opportunity for an outbreak.

“It’s not just the individual, it’s the general population that’s affected by immunising or not immunising a child,” he said.

Dr Sharma said this was particularly important for those in the community who were unable to be vaccinated for such reasons as allergy.

“There are people who can’t do it and they’re at the mercy of those who can,” he said.

He said the benefits outweighed the very small risk of severe side effects of vaccination, adding that in his 15 years of practice, he had not seen a serious reaction.

“Ultimately we know immunisation does save lives, it does minimise disease progression and in the past it has led to disease eradication,” he said.

Dr Sharma said the incidence of epiglottitis, a potentially deadly condition in which the flap at the back of the tongue swells and in some instances blocks the throat, had fallen in the past 10 to 15 years as a result of immunisation.

Dr Sharma credited the high rates of vaccination in the Bendigo area to the City of Greater Bendigo’s free immunisation program.

Children are vaccinated for several diseases in the national immunisation schedule, including measles, polio and whooping cough.

Victorian children must be fully vaccinated to attend childcare and kindergarten.

The Victorian government have also released an app, VaxOnTime, to help parents keep up to date with their children’s immunisation schedules.